for all of the days
by Catalina Day
Summary: Every day after this one is the most important day of your life. Kogan two-shot. What's a life-altering confession or two between friends?


**A/N:** This nagged at me, and it wouldn't leave me be until I wrote it. I can see why, now. There's a lot of personal stuff wrapped up in this, and for some reason my brain channeled it into Kogan fanfic. I don't pretend to know how my brain works, but even though things don't always work out so well, writing this still made me feel better.

**Summary:** Every day after this one is the most important day of your life. Kogan two-shot. What's a life-altering confession or two between friends?

* * *

_**for all of the days you were there**_

* * *

Your gut clenches painfully as you look up at the star-filled sky, and you hear the soft squeaking of a door opening behind you.

You wrap your jacket tighter around yourself, and Logan sits next to you on the tarred surface of the roof. "Cold?" he asks, a hint of a smile in his voice.

You shiver, and shake your head 'no'. Not cold. Not anything, really. He nudges you with his shoulder, and you smile in his general direction, more of a grimace. Briefly, you consider the ramifications of jumping off the roof of your apartment building, but dismiss the thought almost as immediately as it has come into your head. You can feel Logan aching to say something, in the same way you ache for silence.

"What is it, Logie?" And you know what he's going to say, so it hurts more than it should when he says it.

"I, uh… I love you." He clears his throat, and you can see him blushing in that adorable way he does. "I mean… I'm in love with you, Kendall."

The spin of the earth comes to a slow and quiet halt. "I have cancer." The words seep like poison from your mouth, and you hate yourself for choosing this moment to say it. You hate everything for a second, even Logan, because he's not sick.

But then you look at your best friend's stricken expression. Reach over and entwine his trembling fingers with your own. There is something steady in the abrupt stillness of everything. There is this moment, and you grip his hand tight.

* * *

_**and every day after**_

* * *

Chemo makes you feel gross and bizarre and alone. You hate how everyone says 'battling' cancer, or 'fighting' it. It is an amorphous thing that attacks your body and feels no remorse. If it were a physical thing that you could punch, you would. Sure. But it's not.

Instead, you laugh when you can. You cry when you feel like it. You kiss Logan, always, like it will be the last time. And you want that time to stick.

Carlos and James and Katie and your mom make life better, too. When the whole gang shaves their heads in fidelity, you tease and cajole (especially James, because vanity is always a sore spot with him), but you love them all the more for it.

**/**

When spring settles into a blistering summer, you start to wonder what you'll do if the chemo doesn't work. Will you go gently, lingering as long as your fragile body will allow? Or will you be one of those people who say 'fuck it; I'm dying anyway', and go out with a bang?

It's hard to tell, because sometimes it's both, and sometimes it's neither.

**/**

You spend the entire month of October feeling aimless.

Katie is angry at you, and she has told you so in no uncertain terms. And you understand why, but you can't help the way life turns out. It's not easy to sit everyone down and seriously discuss the possible end of your life. It's not easy to think about what you want the last days of your life to be, or the incredible amount of stuff that one accumulates over the span of just twenty-three years.

Katie thinks that you're giving up. You try to tell her that you have to do this now, or you may not get the chance. But the words don't come out right, and it's a few days before she speaks to you again. And that's okay, because she's scared, and you are, too.

**/**

Winter gives way with a groan of tree branches, icy claws melting away from the sun.

When the doctor starts tossing around the word 'remission', you go a little bit mad.

There is an impromptu road trip down the coast with Logan, and your mom screaming at you over the phone, hysterical. But you find yourself laughing, and she doesn't understand until you say the words, and then you're both laughing and crying, and you can't tell which is which, and the water is so wonderfully cool against your feet.

**/**

Every day after this one is the most important day of your life.


End file.
